Two-Qubit Implementation of QAOA for MAX-CUT on an NV-Center Quantum Processor

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Röscher, Leon E., Lezama, Talía L. M., Cimino, Luca, Hofe, Jonah vom, Bassoli, Riccardo, Fitzek, Frank H. P.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866911560016855040
author Röscher, Leon E.
Lezama, Talía L. M.
Cimino, Luca
Hofe, Jonah vom
Bassoli, Riccardo
Fitzek, Frank H. P.
author_facet Röscher, Leon E.
Lezama, Talía L. M.
Cimino, Luca
Hofe, Jonah vom
Bassoli, Riccardo
Fitzek, Frank H. P.
contents We report a proof-of-principle implementation of the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) for the smallest nontrivial MAX-CUT instance on an NV-center-based quantum processor operating at room temperature. The two-qubit register is encoded in the electron spin and the ${}^{14}\mathrm{N}$ nuclear spin of a single NV$^-$ center. Using a minimization formulation of MAX-CUT, we implement a single-layer QAOA ansatz with native entangling and single-qubit control operations. Because the optical readout of the NV$^-$ center is not projective in the computational basis, we reconstruct computational-basis populations from averaged fluorescence signals and use them to determine the experimental QAOA cost landscape by scanning the variational parameters. These results show that the core elements of QAOA can be realized on this platform and establish a baseline for future improvements in phase tracking, coherence-preserving control, and scaling to larger problem sizes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_00949
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Two-Qubit Implementation of QAOA for MAX-CUT on an NV-Center Quantum Processor
Röscher, Leon E.
Lezama, Talía L. M.
Cimino, Luca
Hofe, Jonah vom
Bassoli, Riccardo
Fitzek, Frank H. P.
Quantum Physics
Computational Physics
We report a proof-of-principle implementation of the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) for the smallest nontrivial MAX-CUT instance on an NV-center-based quantum processor operating at room temperature. The two-qubit register is encoded in the electron spin and the ${}^{14}\mathrm{N}$ nuclear spin of a single NV$^-$ center. Using a minimization formulation of MAX-CUT, we implement a single-layer QAOA ansatz with native entangling and single-qubit control operations. Because the optical readout of the NV$^-$ center is not projective in the computational basis, we reconstruct computational-basis populations from averaged fluorescence signals and use them to determine the experimental QAOA cost landscape by scanning the variational parameters. These results show that the core elements of QAOA can be realized on this platform and establish a baseline for future improvements in phase tracking, coherence-preserving control, and scaling to larger problem sizes.
title Two-Qubit Implementation of QAOA for MAX-CUT on an NV-Center Quantum Processor
topic Quantum Physics
Computational Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.00949